Comments on: Child Benefit cuts will hit the poor hardest in the long run

By: Poor hit hardest | Sole Trader PR

Poor hit hardest | Sole Trader PR — Fri, 17 Dec 2010 09:32:52 +0000

[…] (Hackney gets an 8.9% cut , Dorset gets 0.25% rise). Left Foot Forward claims that “child benefit cuts will hit the poor hardest in the long run; inevitably the same can be said for cuts in housing […]

By: Nicola Smith

Nicola Smith — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 16:26:40 +0000

Lucia, that’s a very fair point – I should have put a paragraph on the important role that CB plays in providing women with an independent income into the original article. Nicola

By: Lucia Fry

Lucia Fry — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 12:45:50 +0000

I’m interested that there is such scant mention of the gender dimension here. We should remember that child benefit gives women (and a few men – of course) on lower incomes than their partners some control over household spending, it recognises the value of this work to society, and goes some small way to compensating for the sacrifice of status and independence involved in choosing part-time work or taking a break altogether.

By: Robert

Robert — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 09:05:45 +0000

The father should be the sole bread winner, god where do these morons come from……

By: Richard Nalty

Richard Nalty — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 17:31:55 +0000

The ongoing debate on child benefit is entirely misplaced. This is easily explained. Child benefit should not exist for a simple reason: raising a child is not the responsibility of someone else. I am not responsible for your children, nor are you for mine. Child benefit promotes poverty by undermining the role of the father. The father’s role should be that of the sole, or main breadwinner. Anything that supplements the mother’s income serves to undermine fatherhood. It encourages a dowry of infamy among the lower classes. Benefits of any kind, make little difference to the behaviour of the rich. To be rich is to be protected. To be poor is to be prey to the counterintuitive workings of the welfare state. Social policies designed to alleviate poverty and distress always encourage the very conditions they are supposed to remove. An early warning of this is found in Tocqueville’s Memoirs on Pauperism, written in 1833. That slim volume contains all you need to know on the moral hazards of public charity. Child benefit is but one benefit of many that comes with a built-in moral hazard. Children would not go hungry were child benefit removed. Do they in countries where there is no child benefit or perhaps no welfare apparatus at all? No they do not. In part this is explained by the greater importance attached to self-reliance, the traditional family, and in many cases, an agreeable religious system (Buddhism being one). Needless to say, the traditional family outperforms any other arrangement handsomely, caeteris paribus. Therefore any sentimental appeal to open up the Government’s coffers needs to be examined with extreme caution, for it is almost certain to fail the Tocqueville test. Frederic Bastiat, another great Frenchman would also pour scorn on the very idea of a child benefit system. The larger concern of course is this: if projects rooted in the leftist world-view are doomed to fail, as they ignore moral hazards long-since identified, then why does this worldview persist? The answer is that sentimentality and a related cousin – resentment – can sustain a lie for a very long time.

By: Should we defend the middle class welfare state? | Left Foot Forward

Should we defend the middle class welfare state? | Left Foot Forward — Sun, 17 Oct 2010 16:01:32 +0000

[…] left-wing perspective, Mr Miliband is right to defend universal benefits – as previous posts on Left Foot Forward and Inequalities explain. Means-tested benefits create perverse incentives, where people get […]

By: Ben

Ben — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 09:31:26 +0000

Hello,

Surely if you earn £44K + then you can afford to lose this small income provided through child benefits? You cannot be considered to be poor whilst earning this amount. Instead of concentrating on middle income families losing this negligable amount, shouldnt we be concentrating efforts in preventing benefit allowances to people like the disabled and pensioners? Particularly the disabled as they would only dream of earning £44K+ and worrying about this loss most people are speaking of currently. I wish I was able to earn £44000. One word: perspective.

By: How Cameron uses child benefits as a cover for wider cuts to poorer families | Liberal Conspiracy

Thu, 14 Oct 2010 08:02:29 +0000

[…] Child Benefit cuts are wrong – but focusing on them exclusively only helps the Coalition to provide […]

By: Cameron: Miliband should put "both of his left feet forward" | Left Foot Forward

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 13:53:07 +0000

[…] early formalities, Miliband immediately began to attack the Government over the handling of its child benefit policy: “Let’s be honest, the Chancellor sits there, this policy has been a shambles from day one. The […]

By: Cameron uses child benefit as cover for wider cuts to the poorest | ToUChstone blog: A public policy blog from the TUC

Wed, 13 Oct 2010 11:56:44 +0000

[…] entire package of Coalition cuts for the children needs to be opposed. The Child Benefit cuts are wrong – but focusing on them exclusively only helps the Coalition to provide […]